Unidirectional Negative Refraction at an Exceptional Point of Acoustic PT-Symmetric Systems

Abstract

We demonstrate a method to realize unidirectional negative refraction in an acoustic parity-time (PT)-symmetric system, which is composed of a pair of metasurfaces sandwiching an air gap. The pair of metasurfaces possesses loss and gain modulations. The unidirectional negative refraction, which is strictly limited to the case of incident wave imposing on the loss end of the metasurface, is demonstrated at the exception point (EP) in this PT-symmetric system, while the incidence from the other side leads to strong reflection. Based on rigorous calculations, we explicitly show the underlying mechanism of this model to achieve unidirectional wave scatterings around the EP in the parametric space. In addition, the perfect imaging of a point source in the three-dimensional space, as a signature of negative refraction, is simulated to provide a verification of our work. We envision that this work may sharpen the understanding of PT-symmetric structures and inspire more acoustic functional devices.